It's no secret that we here at PubliCola are fans of passive houses—houses where efficient design radically lowers energy consumption.

A year ago, our Real Estate Nerd wrote about a passive house that was under construction in Rainier Valley. A few months later, Dan Bertolet filed a Cola column on passive houses. And just last week, we hyped a March 18 passive house seminar sponsored by Passive House Northwest, a local group of passive house consultants.

So, we were happy to see that U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA, 1) is a fan too. Last week, Inslee, who's gearing up for a gubernatorial run, sent a letter to PHN saying he was going to sponsor legislation in Congress to give developers an incentive to build passive houses.

Inslee wrote:

In Congress, I am considering introducing legislation to incentivize passive house building and remodeling by increasing the Low Income Housing Tax Credit for passive houses, and enabling a manufacturing credit for domestically purchased passive house house materials.